Engagement at Smithsonian Castle and Gardens

Marc and Taylor are what happens when 2 PhDs meet and fall in love. Their witty banter feed off each other forming a maelstrom of humorous views on life. It's infectious and influences my writing as I type this. Marc makes fantastic savory crepes and Taylor buys blueberries for a local crow that frequents their porch like the neighborhood cat. It looks at you and caws demanding its blueberries. Other fruit just won't do. Or maybe it cawed at me because I was intruding on its territory? If only I spoke crow. They do own a couple cats, though, and I was slightly sad the cats didn’t feign to show up for the shoot. They treat Taylor like a queen and I secretly hoped we'd find a majestic throne so she could pose with them.

I knew Marc before I met Taylor. And my spouse knew him before I did. Us nerds flock together like birds of a feather. Marc is a mathematician. But instead of stopping at a Masters like me, he went on to get a PhD. I love how he holds his math text like a sacred tome. And he looks legitimately happy reading it. Taylor joined Marc when my spouse and I invited him over for a get-together. Marc and Taylor had been dating for a few years by then. She brought me flowers she grew herself because, of course, Taylor is a renaissance woman and is skilled in most anything. She grows her own vegetables, too. Taylor's PhD is in pharmacy and said her chosen text was the phone book of prescription meds before everything moved online. 

Taylor and Marc could probably have a movie based around their romantic lives and I would love every second of it. When Marc overheard me talking about photography, he asked me to take his engagement photos and after a brief agreement from Taylor, they agreed to hire me! I was honored and humbled. It was my first engagement shoot. The pressure was on.

I've read lots of romance novels and watched some iconic romance movies. Someone once told me that romance novels all have the same basic template like a Hallmark movie and they all do well. You know after the first chapter who gets with who. There's a little love at first sight feel - even if 1-sided. There's building tension and some miscommunication that creates a rift. Then the couple clears up the issue or come to terms with it and they fall passionately in love. As much as I criticize characters in my head as I'm reading or watching, I still find the books, movies, and dramas oh so addicting. My trash TV. So, I figure if romance stories have had similar flavors for generations, then it's because it's what the people want. How could I, therefore, make a couple feel like they're part of a romance novel? At least, that was the prompt in my head.

So, when Taylor agreed to let me do some engagement photos, my mind spun imagining so many different poses and scenes. My fantasy of someone living a romance novel could spring from the pages of a book and I had the distinct honor of capturing the moments I had mentally lived and relived reading books. I went to sleep with images flashing in my mind. I came up with 60 some odd poses ranging from purely romantic to hilarious to artsy. After 60, I realized Marc and Taylor would probably stop reading after the first few. I stopped pouring ideas on the page and just waited until we got closer to the day of the photo shoot. 

In addition to my 60 curated (and what I thought clever) poses, I had summarized a variety of locations. Taylor and Marc wanted a colonial and garden feel. Makes sense knowing they live in the NCR and Taylor has a green thumb that truly seems to work like magic. That little guy from A Troll in Central Park just can't compete. After some searching and realizing botanical gardens cost money when taking professional photos, we landed on the Smithsonian Castle (Smithsonian Institution Building) and its surrounding gardens. I didn't scope it out beforehand and I'm not a floral expert. So, I hoped something flowery would be blossoming and figured the odds were in our favor. If there was any garden that would have a robust array of plants that bloomed across the seasons, surely the Smithsonian gardens would be it. We were not disappointed! 

It was almost like the place was designed for iconic moments. We could spot the Washington Monument from the gardens. The castle was a gorgeous piece of architecture - that brick coloring, the wooden doors, the towers. A castle in downtown DC. I drool thinking about it. Too bad the inside was under renovation. No need to fear, though, for the gardens were here! Benches of different types littered every corner. Trees with lush foliage perfect for Alice to fall asleep and travel to Wonderland. Flowers were spaced throughout. We were pleasantly surprised to find a small pool which yielded lovely reflections. Taylor and I both went “ooohhh” when we saw the water. Every space we looked had potential and we aimed to meet it. And we had fun. Marc and Taylor just kept the poses coming and I, in turn, asked if they wanted to try other poses (no need to let my list of 60 poses go to waste). Teamwork all around. And wow. The Smithsonian Castle. Who knew! 

Other than taking a leap of faith in my abilities to do engagement photos, I have much to thank Marc and Taylor for. They were the biggest drivers behind getting this website up and running. Every step of the photography process from ideation to delivery, Marc would ask if I had a website yet. He put my feet to the fire. In a span of 3 weeks between my day job and potty training a toddler, I did market research, created a logo, locked in my domain name, and went through 2 iterations of the website. A number of sleep deprived nights later, it came together. No pain, no gain. As my spouse put it, “I just hope others like your website as much as you do.” Only time and some search engine optimization (SEO) plus Google analytics will tell.